The Writing Experiment, Take 8: An Obligation, A Habit, A Necessity

I have a confession to make:

I didn’t want to write today.

In fact, the only reason I’m doing so now is because I can’t stop thinking, You said you were going to do this, Alison. Fucking follow through with something for once in your life.

But then I started rationalizing making excuses. I’m tired. It was a long day. I’m tired. I wanna watch another episode of Weeds. I’m tired.

And then I remembered my big, bold statement on, what was that? Day 3? About excuses?

Okay, okay, I told myself. I’ll turn on my computer and write something. Then you know what my lazy ass did? I thought, I’ll just find something I wrote before, and post it!

ha, ha! I am SO clever!

Or, not.

While I was looking through my old stuff, trying to get some inspiration looking for something to pass off as today’s writing, I noticed a pretty consistent theme. Take a wild fucking guess at this theme.

A whole lot of introductions, with no conclusions.

I seem to be full of ideas. These ideas last for about, oh, a paragraph or two, and then most of the time they trail off. I do this the most with short stories. Partly because I’m of two minds about my “talents” as a fiction writer. In fact, I was just thinking about this today: I’m not sure if I’m any good at writing fiction. And for once, I’m not trying to be self-deprecating. I’m actually just trying to be honest. Which leads me to the question(s):

Where do you draw the line between being honest with yourself, and giving up? How do you recognize when you’re doing one or the other?

In lieu of actually answering those questions, instead I’m going to play a little show and tell. Or something. Here are a couple of my beginnings with no end.